


Back and There Again

by Ad astra (9Akira5)



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Attempt at Humor, BAMF Bilbo Baggins, BAMF Dís, Bilbo Baggins & Dís Friendship, Bilbo and Dís are going to keep these idiots alive out of sheer force of will, Eventual Bilbo Baggins/Thorin Oakenshield, Eventual Relationships, F/M, Fix-It, M/M, Time Travel, they are a pair not to be crossed
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-10
Updated: 2019-05-10
Packaged: 2020-02-29 09:01:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18775108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/9Akira5/pseuds/Ad%20astra
Summary: Bilbo Baggins is not, apparently, dreaming.Bilbo wishes dwarrow weren't so bloody stubborn.Dis wishes her brother was less of a pompous prick... and that her sons were just a little less reckless. Just a bit. For Mahal's sake, please.And Thorin just wants to know how this hobbit knows his sister.(In which a-likelier-than-first-expected duo are voluntold to fix Middle Earth's biggest issues. Asses are kicked. Dwarrow are baffled. Handkerchiefs are still forgotten.)





	Back and There Again

**Author's Note:**

> an idea i had that wouldn't leave me alone.
> 
> If enough people like it, we'll continue

\- Bilbo Baggins rather hates to admit it, but he has become Quite Old. It’s the sort of Old that settles in his joints and creaks in his bones, an Old that comes with chills and a stiffness in once-nimble fingers, but never dampens a wit like quicksilver.  
\- It’s quite a different sort of Old than what Frodo’s become. There’s a great deal of sadness in his nephew, a weary heaviness in heart, mind, and soul. Though (despite his scars,) Frodo’s body is rather young, it’s easy to see that he’s different.  
\- While Frodo has taken to ceaseless hours staring out over the rolling hills of the Shire Bilbo’s Oldness manifests in a different way: naps.  
\- He finds himself sleeping more often, deep, sudden things, full of strange and sad and wonderful dreams that may or may not begin as memories. There are dreams filled with sunny days and flowers, with trolls and goblins, with laughing dwarves. Dreams filled with brilliant blue eyes and dragonfire and a white warg—  
\- But, by far, the most peculiar of his dreams finds him first, on a boat- a boat of all places!- with Frodo and that dratted wizard.  
\- He can’t quite make out what they’re saying, and his eyes shut soon after, lulled by the surprisingly pleasant rocking of their ship.  
\- They open again to darkness- an odd sort of darkness where he can see himself quite clearly as he floats along, but nothing else at all.  
\- It’s quite peaceful, though, even if he has no idea what’s going on. He isn’t aching anywhere, and his breath has stopped that bothersome rattling, which is quite nice.  
\- And then the arguing starts.  
\- (It’s more like bickering, really.)  
\- There’s a man and a woman, and the voices come from nowhere and everywhere at once, foreign and familiar, in Westron and Sindarin and four or five other languages that Bilbo can’t name but can apparently understand. She sounds like springtime and home and his voice his like a mountain, and even without seeing them, Bilbo knows he is in the presence of something ageless, timeless, and more powerful than he can understand.  
\- So, he contents himself to drifting, listening.  
\- There seems to be some disagreement involving a hobbit and the fate of the world.  
\- She is convinced the hobbit will be fine but whoever she’s speaking to disagrees… strongly.  
\- Things had been fine, he said.  
\- They could have been better, she’d retorted.  
\- He thought it wasn’t worth the risk. She said it was. Back and forth they went, never raising their voices, only changing their tone.  
\- (Bilbo wonders if he should say something; though he’s slightly intrigued, he’s eavesdropping quite unintentionally, and wouldn’t mind going back to the boat.)  
\- Eventually, though, they come to some consensus. Whatever poor sap they’re bickering about seems to be stuck with what sounds like a rather unpleasant job- the phrase ‘fraught with peril’ is thrown about a few times, but at least they’ll be getting a companion, which, Bilbo supposes, is rather thoughtful of the duo, all things considered.  
\- (Because, really, though- sending a body to clean up that mess? Alone? That’s just rude.)  
\- When he wakes, he shakes off the strangeness of it all- or, at least, he tries to. This feeling clings to him, something subtle but familiar, that he can’t place. He’s unsettled, mostly, and quite through with naps for the day.  
\- Nothing quite chases away terrible nights like the tea Elrond sent him from Rivendell… with, of course, some brandy.  
\- But, while he’s quite a bit more brandy than he’d thought-  
\- (He doesn’t remember having more than one half-emptied bottle, left from his cousin’s birthday… Perhaps he should talk to Frodo about proper ways of dealing with grief after all.)  
\- Ugh.  
\- It appears he’s run out of the tea.  
\- (Odd, hadn’t he just opened a new case?)  
\- Making a note to write Elrond for more, he brews some of the herbal tea he keeps for guests, instead. His father had loved it, and, while he’d never developed his taste, he’d kept a tin in the pantry his whole life. It’d do for now.  
\- Mug in hand, he walks to the study- now that the sleep’s worn off and he’s had a few sips of the tea, there’s a springiness to his step that he hasn’t felt in years, despite the odd dreams. Perhaps that’s why his father kept it around.  
\- Regardless, he feels well enough to consider taking a walk down to the market himself or gardening or something to get him outside, later. First, though, he intends to get some writing done.  
\- It’s been more than a little aggravating. Lately, the words won’t come to him. It isn’t that he’s forgetting- he’d never- it’s that he can’t seem to put the words to paper in a way that pleases him.  
\- Perhaps today will be the day.  
\- But he can’t find his memoir, either.  
\- It isn’t on the desk, or by his chair. It hasn’t fallen to the floor, nor is it tucked on any of the shelves- as a matter of fact, the entire study is in disarray. There are dozens of books missing, all sorts, from Frodo’s collection to some rarer volumes he’d collected in his travels or been gifted through the years- books that he’d been reading just the night before!  
\- Swearing under his breath, Bilbo rubs his temples with his free hand. Mad Baggins, indeed.  
\- “Frodo?” He shouts, fighting the impending headache.  
\- There’s no answer.  
\- The boy has two types of sleep, though- there’s the featherlight barely-there dosing, where even the slightest noise has the poor lad up and pacing, and the bone-tired out-like-a-light sleep.  
\- His money’s on the second.  
\- But, as he goes down the corridor, he passes a mirror, an old thing left from his parents’ days, takes a step past it, then stops.  
\- Bilbo Baggins takes a step back and looks into eyes he’s seen all his life in a face he’s not seen in decades.  
\- Bilbo Baggins drops his mug.

\- Bilbo is very much not panicking, thank you. He’s simply… simply-  
\- He stares, hands shaking, at the hobbit in the mirror. When he raises a hand to touch the glass, the reflection reaches back- smooth, unscarred fingers, unwrinkled and unmarred by time and decades bearing the One Ring.  
\- There are the expected half-formed, frantic, jumbled thoughts barreling around his mind, but amid them, one stands clear: what is he going to say to Frodo?!  
\- That question, is answered, though, when Bilbo finally musters up something resembling nerve and goes over to Frodo’s room.  
\- It’s cold and dark, covered with dust and cobwebs, with sheets over all the furniture and the blinds- those heavy, horrid drapes that he and Frodo had used to make tents on stormy days-cover the window.  
\- He sits down heavily on the floor.  
\- Days pass in a haze of ignored social calls and half-hearted meals. Bilbo doesn’t know exactly what’s happened to him—  
\- (He has a relatively good idea, though)  
\- But he does know he doesn’t quite like it. He’s an old hobbit. He’s lived his life. He didn’t ask to be hurtled through time- well, not explicitly. Wishful thinking was just that: thinking.  
\- He doesn’t know a blasted thing about the outside world other than Lobelia was still a shrill pain in his ass and that the entire Gamgee family was a blessing upon the shire to be cherished forever.  
\- (He refuses to read the paper. Knowing the date will just make it all the more real.)  
\- A week later, when the bell at his door chimes, Bilbo resolutely ignores it… the first six times. By the time it’s rung a seventh, it’s more than apparent whatever unwelcome neighbor or relation who’s come to call is not just going to leave him be.  
\- With a distinctly-un-hobbit-like scowl, he storms to the door, ready to tell Lobelia to sod off as politely as he can-  
\- (Which, all things considered, isn’t very at the moment)  
\- -and he opens the door.  
\- His caller raises a wry brow, dark hair no longer streaked with silver, with beads of wood and iron instead of jewels and precious metals.  
\- She folds her arms and her eyes met his- blue, so blue—  
\- Because Princess Dis, Daughter of Thrain, mother to Kili and Fili, Sister to—to Thorin, Lady Under the Mountain, is standing on his doorstep.  
\- She grins, a sad wild thing, and says, “Hello again, Master Baggins.”  
\- Bilbo Baggins responds in the way any respectable hobbit who’s been thrown back in time to open the door to find the sister of his long dead—hrm. Anyway.  
\- Bilbo Baggins faints dead away.


End file.
